avatarMarsha Adams

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Abstract

y say great art should make you think. This must be great art then, because it makes me think real art isn’t in sterile galleries, it’s in the neglected streets where flowers grow and bloom from cracks in the cold concrete. That’s <i>my</i> truth: perfect art has life and colour, not inert blankness.</p><p id="117d">I take off the headphones because the rap is annoying me. I have another song in my head now, and I whisper the lyrics to myself: “<i>If you like to do whatever you’ve been dreaming about, then baby, you’re perfect.</i>”</p><p id="e20c">I pull my dress over my head, drop it on the floor, and approach the wall. I wish I’d worn matching underwear today, but I never expected anyone to see it. I don’t actually want anyone to see it now, because it’s obscuring my art, so I reach back, unhook my bra and shrug the straps off my shoulders.</p><p id="92df">The tattoo on my back — honeysuckle climbing up my spine and spreading over my shoulder blades in delicate, cerise blooms — is more real and beautiful than this ridiculous exhibit.</p><p id="a7aa">Hearing a gasp behind me, I turn, holding my bra over my breasts. A man in a corduroy jacket is staring at me, open-mouthed, like for once he’s seen genuine art and he doesn’t know what to say. I lower my hands and let my bra fall, so he has a clear view of the spray of pale blue forget-me-nots rising up between my breasts and spilling onto them. The tent he pitches is probably the most authentic response he’s ever made to art.</p><p id="8eb9">Staring back at him, I lower my knickers to reveal the pale pink cherry blossom above my vulva. That’s the truth, and I want him to make me a liar.</p><p id="443b"><b><i>More from Marsha…</i></b></p><div id="bc3a" class="link-block"> <a href="h

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MICRO MONDAY, Suggestive Flash Fiction

Truth

I wish I’d worn matching underwear today

I love street art, but it feels odd to see it in a gallery. Something so beautiful, so free, ought to be where it can be seen by everyone, not hidden away.

This gallery tries to bring the art to life by giving visitors wireless headphones, with every installation linked to music which plays when you stand in front of it. I prefer pop, but the hip hop tracks they’ve chosen for each piece are okay… except this one. The exhibit is entitled ‘Truth’, and its soundtrack is whisper rap played so quietly I’m struggling to hear the lyrics; I think the hook’s something about ‘showing the truth’. I guess the artist for this painting is fake, because their Truth is a whitewashed wall.

I won’t be the woman who says, “The emperor has no clothes,” and then has a poser in a corduroy jacket explain how the artist’s message is about purity being corrupted by a hegemony of the mundane leaving only a sense of nihilism and the dawn of a new beginning, or some other arty bollocks. So I stare at featureless white paint for a few minutes.

They say great art should make you think. This must be great art then, because it makes me think real art isn’t in sterile galleries, it’s in the neglected streets where flowers grow and bloom from cracks in the cold concrete. That’s my truth: perfect art has life and colour, not inert blankness.

I take off the headphones because the rap is annoying me. I have another song in my head now, and I whisper the lyrics to myself: “If you like to do whatever you’ve been dreaming about, then baby, you’re perfect.”

I pull my dress over my head, drop it on the floor, and approach the wall. I wish I’d worn matching underwear today, but I never expected anyone to see it. I don’t actually want anyone to see it now, because it’s obscuring my art, so I reach back, unhook my bra and shrug the straps off my shoulders.

The tattoo on my back — honeysuckle climbing up my spine and spreading over my shoulder blades in delicate, cerise blooms — is more real and beautiful than this ridiculous exhibit.

Hearing a gasp behind me, I turn, holding my bra over my breasts. A man in a corduroy jacket is staring at me, open-mouthed, like for once he’s seen genuine art and he doesn’t know what to say. I lower my hands and let my bra fall, so he has a clear view of the spray of pale blue forget-me-nots rising up between my breasts and spilling onto them. The tent he pitches is probably the most authentic response he’s ever made to art.

Staring back at him, I lower my knickers to reveal the pale pink cherry blossom above my vulva. That’s the truth, and I want him to make me a liar.

More from Marsha…

Another Micro Monday Tale by Heather Kinnane

Flash Fiction
Erotica
Headphones
Art
Microfiction
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